BCS leaders meet Monday to work on playoffs

Nov. 11, 2012
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The Pac-12's Larry Scott, and other FBS conference commissioners will go to work Monday on, among other things, TV rights for the playoff system that begins for the 2014 season. / Kirby Lee, US PRESSWIRE

The most important current item is TV rights for the four-team playoff, which will begin with the 2014 season.

ESPN is perhaps prepared to offer as much as $500 million a year in a 12-year deal for the package of semifinals and title game, according to Sports Business Journal, USA TODAY Sports and other outlets.ESPN, which owns the rights to the current BCS package, is in an exclusive negotiating window. But commissioners might also be interested in exploring what other networks, such as Fox, NBC or Turner, might bid, or whether splitting the package between networks would drive the value higher.

Among other agenda items for the meeting: whether to add a seventh bowl to the playoff rotation; revenue distribution; organizational structure; site selection.

The addition of a seventh bowl is considered unlikely, but the Pac-12 and Big 12 have pushed the idea, as well as the five "non-power" conferences led by the Big East.

"We have to wrestle that seventh-game issue to the ground," Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick said, adding "it's less likely (commissioners would add a seventh bowl). It's not resolved, but I think it's less likely."

Determining the makeup of the selection committee is likely to be postponed until some of the other issues have been resolved.